Winter's Wonderland
by tywysog
Summary: Winter has descended into her own wonderland while wandering around dazed in the Lunar palace. In Wonderland she encounters a few familiar characters among all the unexpected and unpredictable creatures there. This fanfic includes Lunar Chronicles' characters as well as characters, elements, and occurrences similar to the original "Alice in Wonderland"story.
1. Chapter One: Descending Into Wonderland

Down the hall pattered Levana's entourage- clip-clop, hop-step- their inflated dresses and towering hairstyles swinging ridiculously to and fro as they kept up with Levana's irregular pace. Winter felt goosebumps forming as Levana slid by her. She felt her stepmother's scrutinizing eyes on her. As the Queen slid by, Winter caught a whiff of a stinging, iron smell. After the Lunar monarch had passed, Winter stumbled to the spot where Levana had just been. Winter was dizzy and overwhelmed by the odor, and finally recognized it as the smell of recognized it like a hound picking up on the scent of a carcass. There was no evidence of a blatant blood bath, but as a resident of the palace she was so attuned to the smell of it...it creeps its way through the palace halls and curlicues around the queen and her acolytes.

And with the smell waltzed a stream of whispers. Winter followed the smell and whispers and listened intently to the jumble of voices. "The glass night was broken with stars…the darkness is a mirror of heaven…the moon is the earth and the earth is the heaven…"

Winter skipped and danced with it, like a mad man twirling in time with unheard music. Down the hall they went, under the candelabras and across the opaque marble floors. They passed through the many archways that tunneled down the hall. With her peripheral vision, Winter caught sight of a creature dashing by. Feeling her gaze, the creature stopped and stared back momentarily. It looked like a monkey- except this monkey had overgrown metallic violet fur and a square face. Its eyes were narrowed, as if it found her undoubtedly suspicious. Winter herself burst with questions about the animal. Where did this creature come from? Never had she seen it before…she wished to become friends with it. And perhaps it would live with her in the menagerie.

It turned abruptly and ran ahead. Winter dashed after it and ran through a maze of corridors and thin, river-like halls that snaked erratically throughout the palace. The monkey only slowed after its long dash to turn and head into an empty dark doorway. Winter followed it, but as she stepped through the doorway her feet did not find a floor. Without a floor, she fell into a dark hole.

Although she could not see anything she heard the deafening sound of air rushing past her ears as she fell through it. Winter hummed to herself as she plummeted, unable to truly discern the senselessness of her falling from a room with neither a door nor a floor. Briefly, it occurred to her that the palace rooms probably should have floors.

But then she plopped down on to solid ground. She groaned, discomfort ruining the elation she derived from humming and falling. Still, Winter could not see. There was no light! As her muscles relaxed and her body unraveled its tenseness, the princess realized her eyes were closed. She opened them and found herself under a mosaic dome. With her were shelves full of bowls. These bowls were of all shapes and sizes and patterns. Mounting to her feet, Winter walked towards them and looked into the bowls.

Candies. So many different kinds of candies. Hard candies colored hues of purples and pinks and reds and yellows and greens. Candies decked with sugar and candies connecting to one another to form long snaking chains. There was a certain kind of candy in every bowl. Her mouth watered at the sight of so many sweet treats. She paused when she saw small bright red candies, looking like translucent miniature apples. They resembled her favorite kind of candy. Here she stopped and reached for one…

"Ah- not a good idea." a scratchy voice warned. Winter paused, her hand poised in the air. She found a small wolf pup underneath the tessellation of colors that the mosaic dome cast.

"They're good." Winter said slowly, the words elegantly rolling off her tongue as they always did.

The pup seemed to frown at Winter's insistence. "Sure they are." he admitted, "But it isn't a good idea."

"What harm could one do?" Winter countered lightly. Her hand continued in its mission and grabbed a red candy. Before the small pup could protest any further, the candy had already been intercepted by Winter's beautiful mouth. She smiled at the taste of it.

The pup stumbled back and grumbled under his breath. Winter tried to catch his words, but it was getting more and more difficult to do so. The pup came back with a pair of glasses in his mouth -from where, Winter could not tell- but he held them up to her. Winter took the glasses and put them on. As her hand left the glasses now on her face, she noticed that her normally dark, defined hands were dried and wrinkled, and her fingers and hands looked like prunes.

Before she could express her surprise, the pup cocked his head, as if instructing her to walk in the direction indicated. She followed him to a mirror. It was set into the dome so cleverly that it blended in like it was just another tile. Winter did not gasp or shrink back when she saw her reflection. Instead, she leaned in. Her face was lined with wrinkles and years passed. Her skin was not youthful and fitting around her cheekbones and face; it drooped from her face like great jowls. It dawned on Winter that her hearing had gone bad in this transformation. The pup retrieved the glasses for her because he knew her eyesight had declined as well.

It appeared Winter had aged 50 years within seconds.

"What'd I say?" The pup croaked faintly.

She was too intrigued and repulsed to reply.


	2. Chapter Two: C Minor

Winter leaned forward to study her face more closely. Her three long scars, running the length of her face as if teardrops had once carved a path as they fell, were still present on her baggy, crinkled skin. Her hair had aged white. It was sparse and thin, and it looked as if she was loosing it gradually. The only thing that appeared untouched were her eyes. Wide and twinkling under the colored lights that the mosaic inverted bowl above them was casting, her eyes were youthful.

Yet, even with the glasses, she struggled to see. She struggled to hear. And, as she leaned and backed away away from the mirror, she struggled to move.

Winter turned to the pup when she heard a raspy sound. The pup registered her uncomprehending expression and spoke louder. "At least you didn't end up like me."

"What happened to you?"

"I turned young. I have been a pup for years now. I hate it."

"But you are young…everybody strives to stay young. How could you hate that?" Winter asked as she carefully, with pain, knelt beside the pup.

"There are graces that one enjoys while being old, just as there are graces in being young. And I had been growing- practically grown- when I made the mistake you made."

She knew he was right. Winter did not desire to stay old and spend the rest of her life (short may it be, considering how much she aged) without the memory of being young. She empathized with the animal by her and longed to help him. "What is your name?" Her voice was gentle. The pup was startled. He did not know a voice could sound so gentle.

He responded after a pause."Ryuel...but you can just call me Ryu," he added in memory of the warmth that emanated from her voice.

"I'm Winter," she introduced. Then,"Ryu, do you know a way we can fix our problem?"

Ryu shook as if he was scoffing at the simplicity of her question. Even though she was ancient, her naiveté was exuberant. He felt compelled to answer her though, because Winter's voice swung like a rocking serenade. "I think I do. One of these candies can counter another's effect. But nobody knows which one can counter which until they've tried it…and there's no way we can guess. However, this place is one of the lairs of Parkes, the Queen's assistant's pet. You may have seen him. He's a purple creature that gallops and swings. He has narrow eyes and a face shaped like a tile on a chess board."

She nodded slowly. "I did, but he disappeared."

Ryu sighed. "Well, I think he'd know. But he'd never tell us."

"Where can I find him?"

Ryu scowled. "What did I say? Does every other thing I say evade your ears?" He admittedly felt concerned for the naïve girl hidden in the wise-looking elder before him, but he was a tad annoyed considering she had not listened to him the first time he tried to advise her.

"I heard you. I want to know where I can find Parkes." Winter assured softly.

The pup put his head on his paws, which were folded on the floor. "Parkes is always with Sibellius. She's the Queen's assistant and Head Cracker."

"Head Cracker?"

Ryu nodded awkwardly. He did not bother specifying.

"Alright then. Where can we find this Sibellius? With the queen, I suppose?"

"Are you mad?" Ryu exclaimed. "We are _not_ going near the queen. If you want to find Sibellius, then we need to find her when she's away from the queen…but that's not going to happen."

"Oh?"

"There's no way we'll find her. This world is big. It folds and twists and surprises. It is barely navigable. Sibellius could be anywhere."

Ryu's words hung in the air until Winter brought it down. "Let's ask somebody." she said with a mischievous smile. "Would you be able to lead us out of here?"

Taken aback by Winter's confidence, Ryu slowly rose and weaved his way around the shelves. At last he came to a doorway. Like the mirror, it was set in as if it was just another one of the dome's mosaic pieces. Ryu lead Winter into a long hallway. The hall was white and the floor was dark wood. Door-less doorways lined the hall. Through each one of them escaped a colored light. The first one to the right: red, the second: turquoise, the third: gold, and so on. Winter peered into each room as Ryu marched past them. Most of them were empty, but after seeing the room alight with gold light, Winter exclaimed "Ah!" in delight.

"What?" Ryu asked uneasily.

"I know how to find people to ask!" She dashed in and returned with a simple old wooden flute.

"People aren't going to just come and answer to that old flute-" Ryu tried to explain.

"Of course." Winter agreed wholeheartedly.

"Do you even know how to play a flute?"

"Nope."

Forgetting he was the one who knew the way out, she charged ahead of him. "This way!" he hollered when she was wandering away once they had exited the hall.

She turned and followed Ryu to the right where an offshoot from their second hallway was cleverly disguised as merely another doorway. They went up a set of stairs and pushed through a hatch set into the sloping ceiling above the top landing of the stairs. Winter helped Ryu up through the hatch and then pushed herself through.

They were outside now. The land around them was hilly. The hills were sore red protrusions like zits across the fair green land. The sky seemed to be slanted, as if the sky was not a pendulous atmosphere but another plane above their plane of existence. The sky was dark and there were stars beaming in their places along the slanting deep pattern of the sky.

Winter wasted no time. She blew into the flute and out came a shrill, piercing sound. It intruded the quiet of the land and was now all one could hear for leagues around. Suddenly, a gopher popped from the ground. Sprays of dirt and grass exploded as the gopher broke forth.

"What is that ungodly sound?!" The creature yelled.

Winter stopped her playing to smile. The gopher felt as if he was off balance, even though he was set firmly in the ground. "Are there others around?"

"Yes, but everybody's probably slee-"

The flute began its shrieking random playing again, and both the gopher and Ryu tried to cover their ears. From the darkness soon emerged creatures from all directions. Some were flying bird-like creatures emerging from the sky. Some were animals like the gopher springing from the ground, while others seemed to be coming from their abodes, which were undoubtedly among the hills that splayed out in all directions.

Those who were not completely wrought by sleep chattered with their neighbors. "Can't that old hag see we're trying to sleep?" and "It's too loud!" and "Hmmm…I can see she is attempting a variation of the C minor scale. Does she know she's off pitch while she plays the highest octave?" and "I am becoming rather fond of that syncopated rhythm she's playing." and "Don't be an idiot. I hear no logical rhythm in this sonar monstrosity." At last a crowd had formed around Winter and Ryu. They were a mix of curiosity, annoyance, and alarm.

Winter ended her playing with a flourish. Ryu began speaking after she stopped. "Everybody, we need help-"

"Why should _we_ help _you_? You just woke us up!" someone yelled out from within the mass. Heads nodded and the crowd became indignant.

Winter tried to speak, but her naturally soft voice could not surmount the din.

"I've got an idea!" yelled somebody. The crowd broke off and started to look amongst each other in search of the source of the loud voice.

Maneuvering around paws and feet, the gopher managed to crawl out. Ryu was startled that such a small animal was capable of making so much noise. Winter marveled at the gopher's ability to command the crowd.

"They'll keep up with that _thing_," the gopher gestured towards the flute, "if you all say no. So let's resolve this fairly with a game. The matter will be settled."

"It's almost morning. We need a game to break off the sleepiness too!" piped somebody. The tired ones seemed to agree with this idea but were too tired to nod their agreement.

"Alright then, a game to settle the matter and dispel the sleepiness."

And thus began a great game of hide-and-seek-and-riddles.


	3. Chapter Three: Something About Marbles

"Here is how the game shall go." The gopher declared, "the ones awakened are the hiders, and the wakers are the seekers. The seekers shall count to a hundred-"

He hesitated and whispered to Winter (which wasn't really a whisper but a really loud voice that was softer than the voice he had been speaking in) "Can you count up to a hundred?" His face was earnest. Winter nodded slowly, and wrung the ripped gauzy fabric of her dress in an effort to channel her nervous energy. She was excited to play the game. Meanwhile Ryu sat back on his hind legs and breathed deeply. He was all for the hide-and-seek part, but what was this riddle part?

The gopher continued. "If a hider is found, the hider has the chance to free her or himself by asking the finder a riddle. If the finder can answer the riddle, that person is found for good and must make a whole-hearted effort to find people alongside the other seekers. If the finder fails to answer, the seeker must close his or her eyes and count to ten to allow the found creature to escape."

Ryu tilted his head to give Winter an exasperated face. Winter chewed the inside of her rough cheek. Both of them had the same question ringing in their tired heads: What if they could not answer the riddles?

"Alright then!" The gopher said cheerfully and the creatures swayed in anticipation and fatigue. "Start counting!" He commanded Ryu and Winter.

The two closed their eyes and started to count together. The great game of hide-and-seek-and-riddles commenced.

When they finished counting, Ryu said quickly to Winter, "Let's split up and cover more ground. You go that way," He jerked his head towards the left, "and I'll go to the right." Ryu bounded off, his nose sniffing keenly in the air.

Winter descended down the sloping land and looked around. Shadowy figures dashed across the crevices between the gentle red hills. They covered and broke the green landscape, which was alight by the constellations dazzling above. They were going to be hiding behind the hills, no doubt. Winter was clever, and saw right away that if she were to go around one hill to confront whoever was hiding behind it, the hider would simply run around to the other side of the hill so Winter would find nobody, so they would continue circling around the hill fruitlessly. She crept silently and hoped to not give the hider that chance.

She first found a small bear curled in the shadow of a hill. Winter tapped the bear on the head, and the bear raised her concealed face. The bear's chin and part of her cheek was seared off, so that her side teeth and jaw was grotesquely exposed.

"You've been found," Winter needlessly informed the bear.

The bear said nothing. She looked somewhat scared, even though her incisors glinted menacingly.

"What's your name?" Curiosity bested Winter.

"Rubes."

"Rubes, you must ask me a riddle. Can you think of one?" Winter inquired gently.

Rubes closed her dark glassy eyes. After a pensive moment, she gave her riddle. "I weigh the sea. I lie in the mines. I am traded in the desert and a king once considered me more valuable than gold. What am I?"

Winter gulped. Sea. Mines. Desert. More valuable than gold? Is it a kind of metal? But why specifically mention the desert then? And if it were metal, then why the explicit comparison to gold? Perhaps it wasn't metal. Mines can hold rock too. But what kind of valuable rock is traded?"

She sighed, and racked her brains. "Salt."

"Wow, how did you know?" Rubes' eyes were widened in amazement.

"Rock salt. Sea salt. Salt is used by everybody. I don't know about the desert and the king though."

"The king is from an old first era story. The salt trade was dominant in the desert in the first era- although later than the time setting of the king's story." Rubes smiled. Her whole cheek and damaged cheek stretched painfully.

Winter nodded spacily. "Did you live in the first era?"

"No, I am just fond of stories. History…fiction…" She grinned again.

The princess smiled. "Time to go find the others." She gave Rubes a paw up and then they headed off in separate directions.

The next creature was found after several dodgy circles around one hill. It was a turtle with wings. "A turtle flapper!" Winter exclaimed gleefully upon meeting it.

He groaned. "You got me." He then yawned and muttered, "I'm surprised I was able to give that much effort. I am tired to the shell." While he patted his shell awkwardly, he again yawned obnoxiously. "Ready?"

She put her hands on her hips and gave him an impatient look.

"Alright then, you're an eager one." He paused. "It ticks and it turns. It takes life like a fire gradually burns. There is no running from it and it is ever present. What is it?"

Winter rocked back and forth on her heels. Ticks. Turns. It takes life gradually. There is no running from it and it is always there. Death? No…what about ticking and turning?

"Time."

The turtle huffed impatiently. "Do I _really_ have to go seeking now?"

Winter nodded and skipped off, while the dejected winged turtle- endearingly called turtle flapper henceforth- flew away.

Meanwhile, Ryu was not having any luck. It was not the finding. Unlike Winter, he was more efficient at finding people by using the different smells of creatures wafting in the night air. But the riddles! They seemed so puzzling at first, but upon hearing the answer it was so obvious.

He found a bear with a torn face. "I found you." Ryu declared this flatly and waited for the ridiculous riddle.

"What? No, no. The old gentlelady found me already. I'm seeking too."

"Oh?" Ryu blinked. "That means Winter is having better luck at the riddles than I am."

"Do you want me to test you with riddles so you can improve?"

Ryu winced at the idea of another head-aching riddle.

The bear's paws waved in the air as she sat and explained. "Here's what you need to do. Put yourself in the position of what it is they are describing. If they mention the sea, imagine yourself in the sea and think of what things are in the sea. If they mention the sky, perhaps you are something in or below the sky. Do not become flustered, and pay attention to every word. Every word is said on purpose and is pertinent to the overall description."

"What if those words are just there to throw you off?"

"Well, they can't lie. It's probably just tricky wording."

Ryu thanked her and headed off in the opposite direction.

When he found a small man with a magnificent lilac beard, he braced himself. The riddle was "Breathe without mouth, light without bulb, crown of destruction and soppy, falling material."

Ryu imagined himself without a mouth. But breathing. Something that takes in air without using a mouth. A light without a bulb. So something that naturally gives off light? Destruction…soppy, falling material? Ryu imagined a mess of substance beneath him burbling and congealing.

"Oh."

"Oh?" The lilac one smirked.

"Fire."

"Hmph." He expressed his annoyance and stalked off.

Ryu leaped and jumped. He howled in delight, causing the rest of the creatures to stop in fear and awe. Energetically, he chased the next scent he picked up.

Meanwhile, Winter ambled farther away. Her hand brushed against the coarse red grass and she had discarded her shoes to feel the contrasting soft green grass beneath the soles of her feet.

"Hullo there." The dragonfly said when he was found.

"Hullo." Winter mimicked. "I've seen you before. There is another one of you in my menagerie."

"Menagerie? Horrors! Is that what I think it is?"

She quirked an eyebrow in surprise. "It's just where my friends live."

"Hmm." The dragonfly mumbled. "Okay then. Anyways... I take the form of anything, I become gray when heavy. When light, I am freely roaming above. What am I?"

The princess wiggled her toes and answered, "You're a cloud."

"Indeed."

And like this, the creatures in the valley were found.

At last, all were found except the gopher who had made up the game in the first place. Everybody, including Ryu and Winter, had come together. The creatures deliberated until finally Winter's words floated and skimmed and popped the restless frustration. "He's underground. We simply cannot find him."

"Does that mean we lost?" Rubes fretted.

"No, I don't think so," Ryu reasoned. "It's simply not fair. He is not within reach of the seeker." The others nodded in agreement. "So…considering we won, I will tell you all what we need help with. We need to find Parkes. Do you know where he or perhaps his master Sibellius is?

Out broke quite a lot of speculation.

"But certainly I saw them last full moon!"

But "What? No, no. Don't be silly, we were flower fishing that night."

And "I saw Sibellius when I went to Marta for her turnips!"

But "But, that very same time _you _say you saw her, _I _saw her at the beach!"

And "Marc and Marcus were playing and then were scolded by Sibellius yesterday."

But "Why would Sibellius bother scolding those two? They're incorrigible!"

And so on.

Ryu exchanged a glance with Winter. "This isn't what I expected."

Winter frowned, her whole dragging face of jowls and loose wrinkled skin sunk impossibly low. She looked downtrodden, which Ryu worried at the sight of. For some reason, he simply did not want Winter to be sad.

"Alright guys!" he barked. The torrent of conversation dripped to a stop. "We are going to go searching for Parkes or something that will help Winter and I return to our rightful ages."

The crowd did not look surprised to hear they were caught in a time that was not their own. Perhaps such things were common here, Ryu thought fleetingly.

"If you would like to help us, that would be great. Either way, we will be heading in the general direction of the marble-crystal palace"-a collective gasp bottled by Ryu's assurance "without actually going that close to it. But we know Sibellius and Parkes will be in the general vicinity of it."

As Ryu spoke, Winter spotted a purple creature that looked just like what she saw in her home. She turned to tell Ryu, but seeing he was in the middle of lecturing and considering she was going to lose that purple creature again, she resolved to catch up with the creature and then bring him back to Ryu.

And so she dashed off, an elegant floating mass of streaked fluorescent white. Some of the crowd members noticed her escape, but none mentioned it. And Ryu was in the middle of assuring everybody something about marbles.


	4. Chapter Four: A Nightmare

After some dashing, Winter started to gasp and huff. Perhaps her old age could not handle running. Nevertheless, Parkes was not far ahead. He swung on his knuckles and looked as if he was crossing the terrain in an uneven gallop. The land had changed spontaneously into a soft earth streaked with snaking rivers. Parkes had been trying to maneuver around the rivers. Sometimes he resigned to simply jumping over the river.

The earth broken with the swirling clear and muddy water was also bulging with the roots of willow trees. There were many willow trees sprawled as far as the eye could see, so Winter could hide behind the curtains of drooping willow green to conceal herself as she followed Parkes. She twirled around the weeping willows and skirted around the rivers, until she became too tired to go on.

When that point came, she could not hold in the urge to cough any longer. She coughed and hacked, trying to accept air into her aching lungs. Parkes' ears perked up and he turned around.

Winter's watery eyes widened. Parkes heard her coughing! She did not know what to do. Before she could make a move, Parkes swung towards her with a condescending expression. "Where have you been? Mistress Sibellius is in need of her jacket." he snapped.

Winter only stared.

"The white one?" he sighed exasperatedly. "Are we on the same page here?" Parkes rolled his dark pupil-less eyes. "Nevermind, I didn't expect a feeble-minded old woman to comprehend much. Anyways, go find it."

"At her house?"

"Yes, yes." Parkes waved his furry limbs as if to shoo Winter's stupid questions. "That way," he gestured towards the left, which was northwest from Winter's perspective. "Haven't you ever worked in her abode?"

"No?"

"So you're a _palace_ worker. I thought I recognized you. Head toward the whispering caves. You'll know it when you hear it." Parkes bounded off.

Stars! Winter threw her hands up as she picked her way around the roots and rivers towards the indicated direction. She lost him! Now the question was, should she go back to Ryu?

She pivoted around meaning to return, but it dawned on her she didn't remember the way they came. The old woman had been so concentrated on keeping up; she could not remember what she passed or discern any particular landmarks. Winter was baffled. It almost seemed as if the land changed spontaneously. For all she knew, they could have been traveling in circles.

Again she pivoted to journey to the whispering caves. Hiking with difficulty across the land, she hummed old Lunar lullabies to herself and smiled at the memory of them. Princess Winter did not quite remember when she heard them or who sang them to her, but those lulling voices from long ago never left her ears.

"I know that one." stated a confident voice. Winter finally noticed a little robot rolling on rubber wheels alongside her. The outdated robot looked like something from an early second era fantasy, back when space travel only consisted of a few trips to the moon.

"You're very shiny." Winter noted. "How do you keep so shiny?"

The head of the robot turned with a wincing creak. The robot's eyes were nothing like that of outdated robots'. This one's eyes were alight and pulsed like a hungry fire. "I do what I can." A metallic chuckle resounded from the creature. "I think the better question is, why is a sensible creature like yourself heading towards the lair of Sibellius?"

"I'm not sensible." Winter retorted defensively.

Her companion corrected the question:"Why is a _not _sensible creature like yourself heading towards Sibellius' lair?"

"Parkes told me to find her jacket, and I do not know how to get back to my friend Ryu, and I am wondering what these whispering caves are... so I just went ahead."

Once more, the metallic laughing. "Doesn't seem too smart."

Winter made no expression.

"I'm sorry, I did not mean to accuse you of being smart." The robot joked. As if to apologize, the robot slowly extended an arm with a bent-out-of-shape claw instead of a hand. "My name is Ash."

Winter shook the claw. "I'm Winter. You remind me of an old friend, but I do not remember her having your kind of humor."

"People change." Ash responded mysteriously.

With that, Ash whirred ahead of Winter, turned, and continued on ahead by traveling backwards. Facing Winter, she slowly folded into herself from the bottom up until all that was left were those eyes- so alive for something far from human.

"I have never seen eyes without a creature, but I have seen a creature without eyes." Winter remarked. She shuddered at the memory of it, of her stepmother's henchmen dragging the newly blind eyeless man towards the dungeons. Why this horrific punishment? He had not cooperated. He claimed he did not see anything that night and that he could not answer the Queen's question. So the queen taught him an unforgettable lesson.

The fiery eyes were gone now. Winter's heart beat quickly, unnerved by the memory and by her new friend's disappearance. She nervously started humming again, settling comfortably into the same songs she had recalled earlier.

Soon, other noises started to penetrate her humming. Winter cocked her head, like a canine trying to listen better and distinguished whispers. As she continued on, the whispers became more distinct. "The glass night was broken with stars…the darkness is a mirror of heaven…the moon is the earth and the earth is the heaven…" The princess shuddered. These words were familiar to her.

The land was gradually becoming darker around her, as if some unseen sun were setting and dragging the world towards night with it. The whispers became soft singing, remnant of the lullabies she had been humming.

Soon Winter was trudging in near darkness. The darkness put her in unease, but her insurmountable curiosity egged her forward.

Just as her surroundings became dark, it became brighter. The lighting of the land was faster than the darkening, and soon the environment around Winter emerged. Crystalline stalagmites and stalactites erupted from the salt-white ceiling and ground. The great teeth that attempted to bar her were characteristic to caves, Winter knew. Here was the lair of Sibellius. The walls of the cave were decorated in swirling patterns and runes drawn in red paint. In some places were frantic etchings. They looked like messes, blemishes among the elaborate designs on the wall, but these were what interested Winter the most. She ran her fingers over the abrasive surface and traced the etchings.

They were in an old language, the same one the red runes were from. Some of the words Winter could not recognize. Others she said out loud, the sound of them followed as echos coursing with the singing whispers through the cave. The words she recognized were "baby," "magic," "strength," "weakness," "lies," "beauty," and "divine." The echos of the words amid the jumbled whispers soon turned into an intolerable whine. Eventually it all became a wavy scream. Winter covered her ears as she jumped between stalagmites and ducked under stalactites, which were pointed like daggers poised above her head.

Her surroundings stopped becoming brighter at one point, leaving the level of light hovering just above dim. Suddenly, the cave tunnel opened up to a dungeon full of cages. Winter peered into the rusting cages. Most were empty. Some held withering forms.

In the dimness, a small metallic thing glinted beside Winter. It then started to expand, as if unfolding itself from the coin-sized thing it had been. The eyes came last. "They were born." Ash proclaimed solemnly.

Winter looked at Ash in alarm.

"Look." Ash's robotic voice tinged with sorrow. "You are borning too."

Winter looked down at herself, and saw that her hands were again smooth and youthful. The ache in her bones and lungs was dissipating. She felt her face in relief, and recognized it as her own. But her arm…

"Not right." she whimpered.

"You are growing younger." Ash narrated as slowly- barely perceptible- Winter's body was shrinking. She was growing younger than she had originally been. Her dress was becoming too big for her, and her face was transforming into her childish and pudgy old self's. "We need to leave." Ash said imperatively. "Or you shall grow so young that you will become hardly born."

Winter observed the withering creatures again more carefully. They looked kind of like babies. Like dying, shrinking babies. Tears sprang up in her eyes."We have to help them."

"It may be irreversible." Ash whispered and earnestly wished her suspicions were incorrect. She grabbed Winter's arms and dragged the reluctant princess away, past the cages and up a ramp that opened up to a beautiful parlor.

"What?" Winter choked.

"Sit here. Sibellius' curses cannot reach here. This is her domain after all; she would not want to inflict the curse upon herself."

Winter hiccuped and cried, sure that this was not a land of nonsenseful wonders but a nightmare.


	5. Chapter Five: Gibbous

A door slammed. Winter's heart beat loudly and quickly. Ash hurriedly whispered "Sibellius is coming. Quick! We must blend in." Ash rolled towards the light green wall beside one satin white and gold embroidered sofa. She held her arms up and out oddly. "Quickly, go to the other side of this sofa, and pretend you are a lamp."

Without question, Winter did so. She held her hands up, closed her eyes, and imagined with all her might she was a tall lamp. Her large dark hair was radiating light, her body a tall gold stem. Her head was a big bulb. She was light. She was light. She was light. She was-

A scream pierced the air. The trance Winter had tricked herself into broke. She opened her eyes and found a small puppy at her feet with long strands of fur coating her. Her eyes were covered, and she looked as if she were a walking mass of hair. Beside her was a hybrid dysmorphic creature. It was a formidable serpent with white iridescent scales. This serpent had the head of a fierce lioness.

The princess resisted her urge to glance at Ash, who was radiating tons of heat. Was Ash overheating? Winter gulped. Had Winter possessed common sense, she would have deduced they were done for. But Winter did not have such, so she looked the serpent-lioness in the eye, whom she thought was Sibellius, and dropped the charade.

Winter withered inside while outwardly looking serene. Her voice was still its normal soothing tone, but there was an underlying flare of sadness and confusion. "You…you did that, didn't you? To all those-"

She was cut off by the beast's pet. "Mistress." The pet whimpered.

"Get rid of these rodents." Sibellius moved as if she was she shooing them away with imaginary hands.

"Yes mistress." The pet trudged across the floor towards the door through which Winter and Ash came through. She glanced quickly at the other side of the sofa before her eyes found Winter. "Come on." It was a command uttered as a question.

Winter looked to Ash, but the robot was gone. She must have folded away as she did before. In her place was a jade lamp, perfectly matching with the decor of the parlor. Winter wished with all her heart that she could float away like a puffy white cloud and stay there within the safety of the skies. Winter followed the pet, tripping on her elaborate dress as she did so. As she left the parlor, she looked back and gave Sibellius a steely stare. "You will repent. You will be sorry you hurt those people."

The beast's head tossed back, and Winter could have sworn she was flipping her hair back- except she had no hair.

Winter's head turned again to look at Sibellius' pet, who had stepped on to the threshold of the antechambers where the cages were. The pet turned right and walked on a narrow path carved into the rock along the wall of the cavernous room. Winter had not noticed it before. The path steeped upwards. Soon the pet and Winter were traversing high above, the cages below them to the left. They walked around to the entrance through which Winter originally came. The cave was brighter this time, and long shadows seemed to crease the ground below them.

The whispers and singing were strongest here. They started to marginally weaken as the puppy and her crossed the threshold and traveled down the tunnel painted with red patterns, stalagmites, and stalactites.

"You should not have gone there." The pet whispered in a high-pitched voice.

Winter peered down at the meek creature through the curtain of her disheveled, beautiful dark hair. "What's your name?"

"Gibb." Gibb squeaked.

"Gibb, do you know a place that makes you older like that place makes you younger?" She pointed towards where they came from.

Gibb's head tilted to the side. "Well…yes…but the ingredients for it are in the marble-crystal palace's apothecary."

"You know how to make it?" Winter asked hopefully.

"Um, yes. I'm the queen's potion maker." Gibb shrunk under Winter's gaze.

Winter was bursting with delight and relief. She picked up Gibb, who yelped at the sudden movement, and hugged her. "Thank you! My friend Ryu needs it."

"So we find him?"

Winter nodded.

"Can you put me down now?"

She reluctantly put her down. The echoes of the hall did not seem as foreboding, and they dulled and quieted gradually as they emerged from the cave. They seemed to be on a mountain within a mountain range. Mountains sprung up in all directions. The sloping ground beneath them was treacherously icy and jagged. At the foot of the mountain on which they end up, there was an ethereal frozen lake shaped like a swirling whirlpool of glittering ice.

They descended down the mountain, slipping and falling. Gibb was full of outbursts while Winter persisted tenaciously. Winter's quiet persistence was not intentional. She was not focused on the mountain. Instead her ever-wandering mind wandered away. She felt stars dance alongside her as if the night had not been replaced by the bleak snow-heavy sky above.


	6. Chapter Five and a Half: The Decision

The crowd melted into discussion, outbursts, and murmurs again. Ryu sighed and resisted the urge to collapse when bear with the torn face sidled up to him. "I am willing to help find Parkes and Sibellius, but I have not seen them recently." She pondered for a moment. " In fact, I haven't seen them in years."

Ever the realist, Ryu exclaimed exasperatedly "Well, we can't simply wander around this land! For all we know, it could stretch forever and ever." He whimpered as pups tend to when they are hurt or afraid, but his words and frustration died under all the sound around him.

The bear's cheeks stretched, as if she was attempting to smile. "We can find them, or perhaps there's another way…" She looked beside Ryu and then gasped. She turned and craned her head.

"What?"

"Where is the gentlelady?"

"What are you-" Then he gasped as well when realization seized his face. Ryu shook his head and covered his eyes with his paws. He looked pained. "Where did she go? Stars, I bet she wandered off! Or did something happen to her?" He uncovered his eyes. His open eyes were seeing but not truly registering the scene before him. He was elsewhere; his eyes were filled with unspeakable horrors playing out in his head. "We have to find her!"

The bear nodded, but did not utter the question that tugged at both their minds:

_How?_

"Let's head towards the marble-crystal palace. There's no way to miss that. It's the only stagnant landmark in this whole morphing world," He thought out loud. "Maybe we can find someone along the way who saw her. "

She looked at him in horror. Her disfigured head shook imperceptibly.

"It's better than meandering throughout the land. We'll become lost ones too if we do that. And if we become lost, who will do the finding?"

And so the decision was made. A deep sense of foreboding dug into them, as if gravediggers were digging a bottomless grave inside of them. Neither one of them wanted to encounter anybody associated with the Queen of Looking Glasses. Yet they persisted so that Ryu and Winter might shake off the feeling of ages they were entrapped in. But more importantly, they persisted to save Winter from the queen's henchmen, if she was to fall among them.


	7. Chapter Six: Serpentine Advice

Gibb slid to a stop when they reached the edge of the whirling frozen lake. Winter continued to tumble and slide down the mountainside until she dug her bare feet into the frozen ground. From that action, her body jarred forward from inertia. For a moment she careened over the frozen surface before rebounding back to where she dug her feet. She waved her arms wildly to regain her balance. Then Winter pulled her feet out of the ground as if she were pulling flowers- gingerly and cautiously.

Kneeling at the lakeside, she whispered in a captivating tone. "Gibb."

Gibb came to her side, trudging with reluctance but drawn by Winter's voice.

"Something's trapped in there."

Gibb blinked, although one could not see the blink underneath the impeccably long strands of fur that curtained her face. "I see nothing." she decided after looking at the lake surface.

"Look harder."

Gibb blinked again more slowly and then searched once more. The ice whirled in an abstract pattern but discernible pattern. Its swirl was almost a piece of art, like a broken mirror on a paint-splattered canvas demurred by shades of frosted white and clear. It took some moments for Gibb to see the delineation of the whirl was not quite the thin fractures of the ice. No, there was something there to make it look like it was so. Something so perfectly embedded and curled underneath the surface that it was easily mistaken as an element of the landscape.

"We must help it." Winter whispered, her sing-song voice now twanged with tragic minor chords.

Gibb was almost compelled to agree by the glistening pity in Winter's eyes and her beauty, stark in the bleak environment. Above, the mountains towered menacingly, cupping the lake in its own inner-valley. Gibb felt helplessly trapped into a position where she could not say no. Coexisting by this feeling was a sliver of relief that had formed when she had finally left Sibellius' cave. Sibellius' cave had entombed her, barring her with agonized whispers.

Remembering this, she realized her fear could condemn the trapped thing under the ice to be just as caught and imprisoned as she was. The prison was different, but the clipping and tightening of freedom was the same.

Gibb stated in a tiny voice, "Let's help it." She panted a bit, unsettled and startled by her decision. Her mind geared into action. "We need some instrument to break or melt the-" She halted when she realized Winter was gliding and stumbling across the ice. She had charged as soon as she'd heard Gibb's agreement. In her passage across the ice, sometimes Winter fell, undoubtedly marring her flawless skin with purple bruises, but she got up as if the fall hadn't even occurred.

"I don't think that will be effective!" Gibb protested feebly. And what exactly would Winter accomplish with just her on the ice? She was not going to break a thick layer of ice like that.

Gibb's vision was snagged by the ice's silver reflecting hairline fractures. There was no sunlight for it to reflect on; this fact alone momentarily unnerved Gibb before she realized the scientific viability Winter's spontaneous action had. If Winter stepped on to wherever the pressure causing the fractures was being applied- that is, wherever the source of the cracked swirl was- she could break the ice. The force of her foot would simply travel along the preordained lines of the lake. A final blow to a surface already slowly dismantling.

But Winter would fall into the lake if she successfully broke it.

"Winter!" Gibb yelped with the urgency of her revelation. "Bad idea! Don't step there! You're going to fall in!"

Winter did not seem to hear her, she was far away from the shore line and well near the center of the mosaicked twist of the frozen surface. A blustering wind picked up and fed the building dread in Gibb. Winter was going to die. Winter was going to fall into the frozen water. It did not even matter if she could swim, how was she going to swim through islets of jagged ice all the way back to shore? She was so far away.

Gibb's new friend was gone. Done for.

Gibb whimpered as Winter came to the center of the whirl.

Winter smiled at the strong wind who had come to accompany her. It blew energetically and reminded Winter to jump with force. Winter swayed with the wind, sliding and stepping the dance the wind coaxed out of her.

Abruptly, the wind blew forcefully and pushed Winter onto the source of the whirl. She fell on her stomach, arms and legs splayed. Under her weight, the ice started to crackle and break in chorus. It broke and shoved away from its other half, rendering it infinitely dividing and crackling. Winter fell into the frigid water which stung her skin and choked her throat.

Perhaps it was a final abduction. Perhaps the lake was angry Winter was freeing its treasured prisoner.

Or perhaps, she thought as a phantom scream curled in her burbling ears, this was the consequence of her action.

But Winter was luckier than most, and it was uncharacteristic for her to even consider the word 'consequence.' Atop some unseen land, Winter rose to the surface with alarming force. The land (land?) under her had risen. Falling backwards, coughing up ice water, and grubbing at the air around her, she did not notice the land shift so its eyes could glimpse at its freer.

Of course! This was no land but the prisoner itself.

"Princess Winter." The land rumbled.

Winter smiled even as she gagged on ice water. She looked like a maniac, smiling as she gasped for breath with water-logged lungs.

"It is an honor for you to visit me. I am Larned, resident serpent of this valley's lake. I see you have come for counsel."

Winter was not sure what it was Larned spoke of, but she focused hard so she could understand to whom she was about to speak to. Larned was indeed a sea serpent with surprisingly good taste in eyeglass style and piercing blue eyes that were uncharacteristic to Winter's other reptilian friends.

She shook her head, indicating she could not speak yet. She coughed up more water, stood, took some few painful drags of breath, and then leaped into speaking. "We came to free you."

"You and Miss Gibbous?"

"Yes, Larned."

Larned's eyes narrowed as he tried to catch glimpse of Gibb on the shore.

"I cannot see her."

It did not occur to Winter to question how Larned knew it was Gibb who came with Winter if he could not see her. Neither did she question how he knew her name or the fact she was a princess. She knew better than to question a serpent capable of providing counsel.

"What is the question that tugs at your heart the most? Or rather, should I say _questions_?" Larned asked as he shifted so that he could swim towards shore. "Mind you, I will only answer one question."

Winter plopped down on the serpent's back and crossed her legs. She hummed after she'd settled down to think. The slithering swim to shore was quiet and Larned allowed Winter's convoluted paths of thought to play out. She knew her question, but still she was puzzled.

Often times, the question begging to be asked is clear. It was the how and the when that stumped an individual.

In the end, she expressed it in the form of a wish.

"With Gibb, I would like to find Ryu."

Larned grunted like an old curmudgeon bothered. He was actually thinking, Winter felt, and not bothered.

"At last, he said, follow the directions of the scaled flower."

"Scales instead of petals." Winter mused, enchanted.

"'Instead?' Who dictated flowers must have petals?"

Winter nodded even though Larned could not see as he looked away towards shore The serpent had a point.

They reached the rocky shore in less than a quarter of the long time Winter took to make it to the center of the whirl. When Larned came close enough to shore, he greeted Gibb.

"Good morning Gibbous."

Gibb shrank, as much as a small puppy could with its already small size. "How do you know my full name?" she asked as Winter inquired lightly "Is it morning?"

Larned deigned to answer Winter's inquiry. "There's never truly a time for morning. If you think about it, it's always morning."

"It is always morning somewhere." Winter agreed as she swung off of Larned's back and tenderly picked her way on floating ice to shore.

"And I also just woke up." Larned smiled wearily. "It is morning to me."

He drew back and submerged in the water. His head was the last to go under, right after he bid the princess and the potion-maker goodbye and good luck.

Gibb stared at the place where Larned had disappeared, overwhelmed by surprise and suspicion.

"Gibb, we must go."

"Go where?" Gibb continued to scrutinize the lake and its resident.

"A garden. Or a forest." Winter sighed and twirled with open arms. "A keeper of flowers."


End file.
